11.12.2013

Three samples collected from live-poultry markets in the southern city of Shenzhen tested positive for the H7N9 avian influenza virus.
The Guangdong province health authority examined 70 samples from 13 live poultry markets in Shenzhen. Shenzhen is an hour’s train ride from downtown Hong Kong. Hong Kong has stepped up surveillance of travelers with fever after finding two cases of the H7N9 strain of avian influenza. The first case is a 36-year-old Indonesian woman who traveled to the Chinese city to buy and slaughter a chicken, and the second is an 80-year-old man who was hospitalized in Shenzhen last month before moving to Hong Kong. Visiting a live poultry market in Shenzhen was the likely source of infection for at least one of the two Hong Kong cases. Samples that tested positive for the virus were found in two live poultry markets. The WHO counted 139 laboratory-confirmed cases as of Nov. 6.